As Cars Collide, Belgian Motorists Refuse to Yield
A Shortage of Stop Signs
And Quirky Driving Rules
Create Culture of Crashes
BRUSSELS -- The intersection outside Isabelle de Bruyn's row house in a quiet residential neighborhood here is a typical Belgian crossroads. It has no stop signs. Now and then, cars collide outside her front door.
"The air bags explode. One car flipped over in the street. Part of one car ended up here," says Ms. de Bruyn, a real-estate agent, pointing to her front steps. Her brother-in-law, Christophe de Bruyn, adds: "In America, they have stop signs. I think that's a good idea for Belgium, too."
The suggestion isn't popular at the Belgian transport ministry. "We'd have to put signs at every crossroads," says spokeswoman Els Bruggeman. "We have lots of intersections."
But insurance companies seeking an easier way to sort out who's at fault in Belgium's frequent fender benders have lobbied for a solution. And so now the government is in the process of making changes to a traffic rule at the heart of Belgium's problems. It is known as priorité de droite, or "priority from the right."
The law evolved from a rule adopted nearly a century ago in neighboring France, intended to offer drivers a simple rule of thumb: Always yield to any vehicle coming from one's right unless a sign or other road marking instructs otherwise.
That was meant to modernize an even more unwieldy rule of the time: Right of way went to the driver of the highest social rank. Horse-drawn carriages were still in common use, and, after accidents, "it wasn't unusual for the passengers to get out of their carriages and compare their titles and ranks in the nobility," says Benoit Godart, a spokesman for the government-financed Belgian Road Safety Institute.
Even more confusing, a driver in Belgium who stops to look both ways at an intersection loses the legal right to proceed first. Such caution might seem prudent, given the lack of stop signs. But a driver who merely taps his brakes can find that his pause has sent a dangerous signal to other drivers: Any sign of hesitation often spurs other drivers to hit the gas in a race to get through the crossing first.
The result is a game of chicken at crossings, where to slow down is to "show weakness," says Belgian traffic court lawyer Virginie Delannoy. Neither driver wants to lose this traffic game, she says, adding: "And then, bam!"
To make matters worse, cars on many of the smallest side streets still qualify for priority over those on major thoroughfares -- so long as they are coming from the right. That forces drivers on many boulevards to slam on their brakes without warning, and some get rear-ended as a result. On certain roads, the rule is suspended, but the only indication of that is a small yield sign drivers often overlook.
Today, failing to yield is the cause of more than two-thirds of the accidents at unmarked Belgian intersections that result in bodily injury.
It contributes to Belgium's relatively high traffic fatality rate, analysts say. Last year, deaths in Belgium from driving accidents were 11.2 per 100,000 inhabitants, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, in Paris.
Other countries have more stop signs and traffic lights. By comparison, deaths in the Netherlands were 4.6 per 100,000 inhabitants, 6.1 in Germany and 8.7 in France -- countries that border Belgium.
Although the U.S. has a higher number of fatalities in absolute numbers -- 14.5 per 100,000 inhabitants -- there are more cars on the street in the U.S., as a percentage of the population, than in Belgium. Americans also spend on average more time in their cars, traveling longer distances.
When the difference in the number of cars is accounted for, Belgium has 22.4 traffic deaths per 100,000 cars compared with 18.1 in the U.S., the OECD data show.
In most U.S. states, when drivers approach a four-way stop, the motorist on the right proceeds first. But the almost complete absence of stop signs in Belgium makes driving here particularly dangerous, says Alain Raviart, a spokesman for the Democratic Humanist Center, a Belgian political party agitating to install stop signs. "It doesn't make much sense," he says.
The Belgian government is in the process of changing the law to make clear that a driver who stops at an intersection in Belgium doesn't cede his right to proceed first. The change should encourage all drivers to slow down and pay more heed at intersections, says Ms. Bruggeman, the government spokeswoman.
"There were a lot of arguments. Some drivers were saying, 'You stopped.' And the other drivers were saying, 'No, I didn't.' Insurance companies and lawyers were using the disagreements to get out of paying for damages," she says.
The law change "will make it easier for us," says Frederic Borzee, a spokesman for pan-European insurer AXA SA. "Until now, it was only in Belgium that we said if a driver from the right stops, he loses his priority."
Many Belgians don't agree that such a change is good for drivers. "Oh, so they're making it worse?" says Wim Pollet, 36 years old, a physician with a medical-device company. Dr. Pollet predicts more crashes because some drivers will be aware of the rules change and some won't.
Noelle Scharf, a Canadian, says she crashed into another car at an unmarked intersection not long after she arrived in Brussels in the fall of 2004 to accompany her husband on an international assignment. "I was in the wrong actually," she says. "Somebody came on my right. But I had nothing -- no stop sign, no red light -- to tell me that I needed to stop."
There was only minor damage to both cars in Ms. Scharf's accident. Others are more serious. Belgian authorities have even sunk posts in concrete curbs at many intersections in an effort to keep cars from landing on sidewalks.
Last October, a Polish man sped through the intersection outside Ms. de Bruyn's Brussels home. Although he had the right of way, he was driving too fast for an elderly Belgian woman entering the intersection from his left to stop her car.
The crash left the Polish man's car wrapped around a post. The elderly woman's car was totaled; she emerged sobbing but uninjured.
One late night in June, a block from Ms. de Bruyn's home, residents again heard the telltale sound of screeching brakes and a loud bang. People stuck their heads out of windows to watch the driver at fault -- a young Belgian man who looked to be in his twenties -- get out of his car and bang his fists in frustration on its hood.
He had plowed into the car of a German woman, Andrea Schafe, whose compact car was crossways in the intersection, its front wheel disabled, bumper hanging down and left front headlight smashed.
Ms. Schafe said, "It wasn't my fault. Was it?"
危险重重的比利时交叉路口
依莎贝尔?德布鲁恩(Isabelle de Bruyn)的住宅位于比利时布鲁塞尔一个宁静安详的区域，房子前面有个典型的“比利时式”交叉路口，也就是说没有停车标志(stop sign)，因此不时有车在她门口相撞。
“汽车的气囊弹出，一辆汽车翻到了街上，另一辆汽车直接撞到这儿来了。”从事房地产中介的德布鲁恩女士一边指着前门阶梯一边说道。她丈夫的弟弟克里斯托夫?德布鲁恩(Christophe de Bruyn)也说：“在美国，路口都有停车标志，我觉得比利时也应该这么做。”
但是这个建议似乎在比利时交通部并不受欢迎。“那我们得在每个路口设置停车标志，”交通部发言人艾尔斯?布鲁格曼(Els Bruggeman)说，“这个国家的交叉路口太多了。”
不过，为了更快解决比利时频繁发生的碰撞事故中的责任界定问题，保险公司向政府游说制定一个解决方案。比利时政府正在考虑修改目前的交通法规，即“右手优先”法则，以从根本上解决问题。
“右手优先”法则是从邻国法国近一个世纪前实施的一个规则演变而来。当时，那个规则是为了给司机提供一个简单有效的判断方法：即除非道路上另有指示规定，否则永远让从司机右手边来的车子先行通过。
该规则由当时一个很奇特的社会现象衍生而来：那时马车还很常用，道路右侧是专供社会地位最高的人的马车使用的。因此，在发生碰撞事故后，“马车里的乘客走出来比较各自贵族头衔高低的现象十分常见。”由政府提供经费的比利时道路安全协会(Belgian Road Safety Institute)的发言人比诺?高达特(Benoit Godart)说道。
可奇怪的是，在比利时如果司机碰到交叉路口停下来观察两侧车况的话，他会失去先行通过的合法权利。这样谨慎的做法在缺乏停车标志的情况下似乎很明智。但司机很快就会发现，只要他一踩刹车减速，就给对方司机一个危险的信号－－任何犹豫的迹象常常促使对方司机加大油门抢先通过。
结果就是一场“狭路相逢勇者胜”的游戏，谁减速就意味着谁“胆怯”，比利时交通法庭律师维吉尼?德兰诺伊(Virginie Delannoy)说道。任何一方司机都不想在这场游戏中失败，结果就是“砰”！
更糟糕的是，许多从狭小边道驶来的车也有优先通过权－－只要它们是从右侧来的。这迫使很多大道上的司机猛踩刹车避让，甚至导致后车与其追尾。有些道路暂缓执行“右手先行”规定，但唯一能够体现这种差别的告示牌也很小，司机没有注意到它是很常见的事情。
现在，在比利时未设停车标志交叉路口发生的涉及人身伤害的交通事故中，三分之二以上都是因避让右侧车辆不及造成的。
分析家认为，这也是造成比利时交通死亡率相对较高的原因之一。据总部设在巴黎的经济合作与发展组织(Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development,OECD)称，2005年比利时每10万居民中就有11.2人因汽车交通事故而死亡。
其它国家的指示牌和红绿灯较多。比较一下比利时的邻国，荷兰每10万居民中有4.6人因此类事故丧生，德国为6.1人，法国8.7人。
虽然美国交通死亡率的绝对数字较高－－每10万居民14.5人－－但美国路上行驶的车辆更多，车辆占人口的比例也高于比利时。美国人开车的平均时间更多，行使的路程更长。
OECD的数据显示，如果考虑汽车拥有量的话，比利时每10万辆车有22.4人死于交通事故，而美国为18.1人。
在美国大多数州，当司机接近四面均标有停车标志的路口时，都会让右侧的汽车先行；但比利时几乎没有停车标志的状况导致在那里开车特别危险，比利时支持安装停车标志的政党“民主人道中心党”(Democratic Humanist Center)的发言人艾兰?拉维埃特(Alain Raviart)说，“右手先行规则没有太大意义。”
比利时政府正在修改交通法律，明确表明在比利时交叉路口停车观察的司机并不会丧失他应有的先行权。政府发言人布鲁格曼女士说，法律的新变化应该鼓励司机在路口放慢速度、小心通过。
她说：“在路口发生碰撞事故后会有很大的争议，一方司机说‘你已经停车了’，另一方说‘我才没有’。而保险公司及其律师则利用双方的争议拒绝支付赔款。”
修改后的法律“会让我们的日子好过一些”，欧洲保险公司AXA SA的发言人法德里克?伯兹(Frederic Borzee)说，“目前只有比利时的法律规定，如果从右侧来的司机在路口停车，他就会失去先行权。”
许多比利时人并不认为这种改变对司机是件好事。“我看这只会越改越糟。”现年36岁的威姆?伯莱特(Wim Pollet)说。身为一家医疗器械公司医师的他预计修改法律后撞车事故会更多，因为有的司机知晓法规的变化，有的可能根本不知道。
加拿大人诺艾乐?沙夫(Noelle Scharf)说，在2004年秋她初到布鲁塞尔时曾在一个没有停车标志的路口与另一辆车相撞。“确实是我的错，”她说，“有汽车从右侧驶来，但我没看到任何要求我停车的指示，没有标志，也没有红灯。”
在诺艾乐遭遇的这次事故中两车损伤都很小，但有些车祸十分严重。比利时相关监管机构甚至在很多路口的路边设置护墙，防止撞车后车子冲到人行道上去。
2005年10月，一位波兰男子开车经过德布鲁恩女士位于布鲁塞尔的家门前。虽然他拥有右侧先行权，但他车速过快，以致路口左侧一个年长的比利时妇女根本来不及刹车避让。
碰撞事故导致波兰人的车撞上护墙，年长女子的车撞得不成样子，她哭泣着从车里爬出来，奇迹般的毫发无伤。
2006年6月的一个深夜，在距离德布鲁恩家一个街区的地方，那里的住户再次听到熟悉的刺耳刹车声和紧随其后的碰撞声。人们从窗户探出头来，看到肇事司机─一个20多岁的比利时年轻男子─从车里爬出来，气恼地用拳头捶打车子。
他撞上了德国女子安德鲁亚?沙夫(Andrea Schafe)的小车，她的车停在路口中间，前轮动弹不得，前保险杠垂落下来，左前灯也碎了。
安德鲁亚说：“这不是我的错，对吧？”
Mary Jacoby
